The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Haryana government on a petition by an undergraduate student as to why investigation into a case of "rape, criminal intimidation, unnatural sex and other offences" perpetrated on her by three law students may not be transferred from the state police to the CBI.
"We agree with you. It is a serious matter," the vacation bench of Justices A.K. Sikri and Uday Umesh Lalit told senior counsel Indira Jaising as she urged the court to transfer the investigation to Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) since thes state police was doing a "shoddy job" while it also seems to be oblivious of cyber laws as it has not acted on that dimension of the crime so far.
The court also issued notice to CBI.
While the victim is a second-year student of the five-year integrated BBA/MBA course in Jindal Global University in Sonipat in Haryana, the accused -- Hardik Sikri, Vikas Garg and Karan Chhabra -- are students of Jindal Global Law School, of 2011-2016 batch, studying in the same campus.
Telling the court that apart from being a crime against a person, it was also a cybercrime, Jaising said: "They (Haryana Police) have no knowledge of information technology."
Police have not checked the girl's mobile which has sensitive information, she said, adding they have failed to take into custody the electronic devices including mobile phones and laptops.
The victim has said that the state police discouraged her from disclosing all the wrongs that were done to her by the accused including on a visit to Chandigarh where she was forced to perform sexual acts while complaining of the "extremely shoddy, unprofessional and biased manner in which the present investigation has been conducted by the state police".
"Police authorities had deliberately avoided recording extremely relevant and crucial information only to make the task easier for them, thereby compromising with the investigation in its totality," she said in her petition.
Pointing to the various pressures, including political, being brought on her parents to withdraw the case, the petitioner has said that after her parents made inquiries as to on "whose instance such requests (withdrawal of complaint) were being made, (they) have come to reliably learn that a member of parliament is behind all of this".
"The interference of politicians in thwarting a free, fair, proper, unbiased and transparent investigation becomes evident when the transfer of the SHO who had registered the FIR on April 11, on the very next day, is looked at from a proper perspective," the petition said.
The victim has also sought direction to CBI to take into "safe custody, the mobile phones/computer etc. of the petitioner as well as those of the university authorities which contain material evidence, until the final disposal of the present writ petition".
The petitioner has sought direction to Haryana government and police to refrain from taking any "coercive steps to procure the custody" of such mobile phones/computers.
